Clipping in headphones...

[Chr1]

Apologies if this has been covered already. Just curious as to whether clipping in/with headphones is a thing?

Don't think that I have encountered it myself as I don't go crazy with the volume when using them personally. Nonetheless I am curious as to the signs and consequences... Are they basically the same as with speakers? ie nasty distortion followed by possible driver damage?

Thanks in advance.

 

[DVDdoug]

I've heard a headphone "buzz" or rattle but I don't think I've head distortion unless it was from the amplifier. But Amir has mentioned in the reviews that some headphones distort when the bass is boosted (even when boosted for "correction".)

Since a regular "dynamic" headphone is a small speaker, I'd expect it to distort like a speaker (compression/saturation rather than hard-clipping). And, I'd expect it to burn-out like a speaker but that's probably not going to happen unless you connect it to a power amplifier (speaker amplifier). And since headphones are (usually) higher impedance than speakers, you won't get the full wattage from the amplifier.

 

[Chr1]

Great, thanks.
Am I right in thinking that compression/saturation is when the driver is fed with more power it can handle and hard-clipping is when it is fed a square wave due to the amplifier running out of power? Unlikely that it will be an issue for me as I generally only use headphones/IEMs when I am out and about and I use a DAP with plenty of power. I guess my only concern would be if I decided to use my phone instead. Wondering if it would be possible to damage headphones if it ran out of power and was hard-clipping.

 

[wunderkind]

I've heard a headphone "buzz" or rattle but I don't think I've head distortion unless it was from the amplifier. But Amir has mentioned in the reviews that some headphones distort when the bass is boosted (even when boosted for "correction".)

Would setting LS and HS in PEQ mitigate this risk to a certain extent?

 

[Vincent Kars]

clipping in/with headphones is a thing?

No, simply because they don't.
An amp will clip if it should deliver more power than capable off.
Any driver will start to distort when delivered more power than it could handle. That is not called clipping but distortion.

 

[Chr1]

OK, but is this down to semantics or me using the wrong terminology? Presumably amps clip and drivers distort. I guess my question is more about how easy it is to damage headphones when the amplifier is clipping. I get that it is generally less likely to happen than with speakers, but presumably it can happen?

 

[Resolve]

No, simply because they don't.
An amp will clip if it should deliver more power than capable off.
Any driver will start to distort when delivered more power than it could handle. That is not called clipping but distortion.

I think what they're asking about is excursion limits, which is commonly referred to as 'clipping', but yeah even then that shows up as high order distortion. And the answer is that it depends on the headphones. I was just writing about this somewhere else but an example is the Focal headphones - they have an excursion limit around 107dB @1khz, but if you boost the bass with EQ or run them from higher output impedance sources, you'll lower that volume threshold.

 

[IAtaman]

OK, but is this down to semantics or me using the wrong terminology? Presumably amps clip and drivers distort. I guess my question is more about how easy it is to damage headphones when the amplifier is clipping. I get that it is generally less likely to happen than with speakers, but presumably it can happen?

I think clipping is a more specific form or distortion in that it refers to the the device in question reaching its output limits. An amp clips for example when input times gain becomes larger than the output voltage it is capable of. Probably the analogue of that in headphones would be excursion limits as explained above.

I think damaging headphones due to a clipping amp would also be quite unlikely, assuming that the headphone can already handle the load at the level amp starts to clip. I.e. if you drive an amp like A30Pro to clipping, quite a few headphones would be fried before the amp had a chance to clip I think

 

[StellarPhenoma]

So per reviews here and elsewhere (Amir, Oratory, Crin, etc...), the 560S are a pair of cans that audibly distort when EQing the bass response upwards. This is not the same as clipping. In terms of clipping for headphones, as far as my understanding goes and what I have generally accepted, is what was stated by IAtaman above - distortion or buzz in headphones is caused when drivers are pushed past their point of response, topping out their volume limitations across different frequencies. They are unable to properly reproduce said frequencies at the desired level, and it causes the driver to, in effect, buzz and distort the sound. As far as driver damage due to this, I am unsure, but I believe it needs to be long-term usage at these levels to cause any level of true damage. Think of it like turning the bass knob all the way up on a pair of speakers or simply sliding the EQ to the max on a pair of already boosted headphones. It's like overpowering anything, in that it'll simply cause weird crap to happen.

I recently EQed my 560S, and I can say I lost clarity (that I didn't notice at first) while EQed, however, removing the EQ pushes them back to normal and I do not hear any changes to the sound from before or after the EQ.

Clipping is a software/hardware interface issue regarding, again as said above, when the outputs cannot reasonably handle the input and thus become a wall of distorted sound.

It is all a form of distortion, just at different points in the audio chain.